POPCULTURE
Music
Music from the 1950s featured singers such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The Four Lads,The Platters and The Ames Brothers are also very popular groups from the 1950s. Jazz included of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. Through the middle of the decade rock and roll started to rise with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.Doo Wop was also very liked.
FILMS For some reason the 1950s have slipped past our consciousness. They exist in a limbo between the focused efforts of Americans to win World War II and the disappointments and cynicism of the 1960s (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy). What happened to the 1950s? They were an era of economic growth for the "haves" in America, and an era of renewed separation of the races in this country. Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) signaled the beginning of a new era in race relations in this country. But that act was again only prelude to the tumultuous 1960s. Where were the 1950s? With the 1950s came the advent of television sets in every home, cinemascope and VistaVision as a desperate attempt by studios to lure viewers back to theaters, drive-in movies, science-fiction films that featured aliens who were substitutes for the Communist menace to the East, and the gradual dissolution of the famed Studio System that had fueled the economy of Hollywood for the past thirty years. Several directors who made their reputations during the Studio Era in the 1940s (Billy Wilder, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Ford) continued to make good films (as well as mediocre ones). But you won't see their names on the next page (The 1960s, Rise of the Director as Auteur). The last vestiges of the Studio System dissolved in the face of new directors, new approaches to acting, and new ideas about the depiction of the real world in films.
The 1950s--Focus on American Films|| YEAR || FILM || DIRECTOR ||
1950
All About Eve
Joseph Mankiewicz
1950
Sunset Boulevard
Billy Wilder
1951
An American in Paris
Vincent Minnelli
1952
Singin' in the Rain
Stanley Donen
1952
The African Queen
John Huston
1952
High Noon
Fred Zinnemann
1953
From Here to Eternity
Fred Zinnemann
1953
Shane
George Stevens
1954
The Caine Mutiny
Edward Dmytryk
1954
On the Waterfront
Elia Kazan
1954
Rear Window
Alfred Hitchcock
1954
A Star is Born
George Cukor
1955
Marty
Delbert Mann
1955
Rebel Without a Cause
Nicholas Ray
1956
The Searchers
John Ford
1957
The Bridge on the River Kwai
David Lean
1957
Paths of Glory
Stanley Kubrick
1957
12 Angry Men
Sydney Lumet
1958
Separate Tables
Delbert Mann
1958
Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock
1958
Witness for the Prosecution
Billy Wilder
1959
North by Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock
Comedies/Comedians Comedy and variety shows were popular. Comedy stars with their own shows included: Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Groucho Marx who starred in his quiz show You Bet Your Life. Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, as well as other stars had popular weekly musical variety shows. The Ed Sullivan Show showcased many famous acts during the decade.
Toys
Popular toys of the 1950's included Wham-O's Hula Hoop and its flying disc Frisbee, both introduced in 1957. Kids got around on Schwinn bicycles and Radio Flyer wagons. Girls wanted Ohio Art Company's tin lithographed tea sets and Little Chefs Stoves, Ideal Toy Company's diaper-wetting Betsy Wetsy, and Mattel's 1959 adult-bodied fashion doll Barbie first produced on March 9,1959. Boys wanted Daisy BB guns, Lincoln Logs, and miniature Matchbox vehicles. In 1955, Walt Disney's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier saw the production of 'coonskin caps' and other frontier-themed toys. View-Masters, Silly Putty, and Slinky were bestsellers. Mr. Potato Head, a toy of plastic face parts that could be stuck into a potato, was the first toy to be advertised on network television, and in its first year of production made over $4 million. Television shows and films generated show-related toys and books. Popular board games included Milton Bradley's Candyland, and Chutes and Ladders.
Music
Music from the 1950s featured singers such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. The Four Lads,The Platters and The Ames Brothers are also very popular groups from the 1950s. Jazz included of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Billie Holiday. Through the middle of the decade rock and roll started to rise with Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley.Doo Wop was also very liked.
FILMS
For some reason the 1950s have slipped past our consciousness. They exist in a limbo between the focused efforts of Americans to win World War II and the disappointments and cynicism of the 1960s (the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy). What happened to the 1950s? They were an era of economic growth for the "haves" in America, and an era of renewed separation of the races in this country. Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) signaled the beginning of a new era in race relations in this country. But that act was again only prelude to the tumultuous 1960s. Where were the 1950s?
With the 1950s came the advent of television sets in every home, cinemascope and VistaVision as a desperate attempt by studios to lure viewers back to theaters, drive-in movies, science-fiction films that featured aliens who were substitutes for the Communist menace to the East, and the gradual dissolution of the famed Studio System that had fueled the economy of Hollywood for the past thirty years. Several directors who made their reputations during the Studio Era in the 1940s (Billy Wilder, John Huston, Elia Kazan, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Ford) continued to make good films (as well as mediocre ones). But you won't see their names on the next page (The 1960s, Rise of the Director as Auteur). The last vestiges of the Studio System dissolved in the face of new directors, new approaches to acting, and new ideas about the depiction of the real world in films.
The 1950s--Focus on American Films|| YEAR || FILM || DIRECTOR ||
Comedies/Comedians
Comedy and variety shows were popular. Comedy stars with their own shows included: Milton Berle, Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Groucho Marx who starred in his quiz show You Bet Your Life. Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, as well as other stars had popular weekly musical variety shows. The Ed Sullivan Show showcased many famous acts during the decade.
Toys
Popular toys of the 1950's included Wham-O's Hula Hoop and its flying disc Frisbee, both introduced in 1957. Kids got around on Schwinn bicycles and Radio Flyer wagons. Girls wanted Ohio Art Company's tin lithographed tea sets and Little Chefs Stoves, Ideal Toy Company's diaper-wetting Betsy Wetsy, and Mattel's 1959 adult-bodied fashion doll Barbie first produced on March 9,1959. Boys wanted Daisy BB guns, Lincoln Logs, and miniature Matchbox vehicles. In 1955, Walt Disney's Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier saw the production of 'coonskin caps' and other frontier-themed toys. View-Masters, Silly Putty, and Slinky were bestsellers. Mr. Potato Head, a toy of plastic face parts that could be stuck into a potato, was the first toy to be advertised on network television, and in its first year of production made over $4 million. Television shows and films generated show-related toys and books. Popular board games included Milton Bradley's Candyland, and Chutes and Ladders.